Wednesday 14th – Jan and Mechelen – Spring/Summer 1941

Walking from Mechelen’s office to the mess over the damp spring grass, Jan took in the low barracks beyond the regular screen of aspens and the extensive motor pool – the dozens of trucks, armoured cars, motorcycles and staff cars parked amongst the trees beneath screens of netting and camouflage rags. Birds pecked at the replanted grass along the edges of the path, darting aside as the men approached, and skittering back as soon as they had passed.

Jan noticed that Mechelen walked with a strange limp, and he tried to surreptitiously analyse the older man’s gait as they walked. It seemed that Mechelen threw his right foot out to the side slightly as he stepped forward, swinging it back onto the straight in a gentle arc. Jan could see from Mechelen’s regular grimace that walking caused him some pain.

When Mechelen had said to Jan, “Fuck that, come and meet the boys,” Jan had envisaged meeting his new comrades in the same kind of officers’ mess that he’d grown used to during his diplomatic service: comfortable rush chairs, carpets, subtle light fittings, glass-topped tables, a bar backed by mirrors and suspended spirit glasses.

The ‘mess’ as [G_burg], however, was more like a Scout hut: the outside walls were clad in narrow, black-coated planks that looked like a fence, and the roof was of corrugated metal sheets. There were a few unopenable windows, all criss-crossed with anti-blast tape. Inside, once you pushed open the stiff door that scraped over the warped floor, it was like something you’d expect to find in some run-down dock area in one of the seedier ports at home – the smell of spilled beer, with an undertone of vomit barely concealed by the application of disinfectant. There are a few table lamps, but most of the light comes through the small windows, and it’s an inadequate white morning light that makes the space seem shadowy, cold and miserable. It’s a place that needs night and artificial light to make it seem closed and homely.

You sense that the rugs scattered on the floor would be damp with beer, and that they’d be imbued with a paste of much-crushed broken glass, ash, pretzel residue and spilled alcohol.

There was another odour that crept up on you as you approached the men sprawled in the unmatched collection of threadbare armchairs and sofas: a bitter smell of rotting carpet and floorboards, of grease and stale booze. It made Jan think of fear and unhappiness desperately drowned in alcohol, and of jobless people queuing outside bars at 10 AM, waiting for them to open. Habitual drinking that becomes its own self-fulfilling fuel.

“Boys, boys, this is Major Martens. Please make him welcome in the usual way. He’s going to be working with us for a while, coming along with us for the ride and doing some logistical surveys for the Economic Planning Ministry. That’s right, isn’t it Martens?” (Martens nods.) “So, please make him welcome in the usual way, eh?”

Mechelen elbow-guides Martens up to the wooden-topped bar, and the serving man pours them each a substantial glass of schnapps. It’s far more than Jan would ever pour himself, even late in the evening when he was already well-oiled and unconcerned about how he’s likely to feel in the morning. The rest of the officers raise their glasses, and toast him when Mechelen says, “Logistics!” and downs his schnapps in a single prolonged swallow. Even in the dim light, Jan can see that the skin of Mechelen’s throat is mottled and red, and that his shirt collar looks dirty and damp. He can smell how stale Mechelen smells. As the other officers gather round to shake Jan’s hand and ask him their banal, awkward questions of introduction, he senses the same staleness and alcohol-soaked resignation: there’s a uniformly unhealthy pallor to their skin, their eyes all seem shadowed, and their hands all have an unpleasant limp dampness when he shakes them. It’s rather like being surrounded and patted at by a collection of weedy ghosts.

He sips at the schnapps, the acrid alcohol sluicing down his throat, and he feels the space behind his eyes wavering and tightening as the booze takes effect; knows that he’s uncomfortable drinking at this time of day, knows that it will make him feel stupid; knows that he will feel pressurised by the need to keep up with the drinking pace of these men; knows that he won’t be strong enough to resist that pressure; knows that he will get a headache and feel awful later and in the morning. He wonders if there’s anything to eat that he can use to cushion the impact of the booze and help slow the pace. The next schnapps has already been poured.

[…]

(c. 800 words)